The purity of vengeance : a Department Q novel
(Book)
D ADLER
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Published Reviews
Booklist Review
When your series relies on cold cases, it's not always easy to craft plots that have both historical interest and an air of urgency, but it's something Adler-Olsen is very good at even if he's getting just a little bit less successful with each successive book. The fourth Department Q novel finds cranky Copenhagen detective Carl Morck and his quirky but competent assistants, Assad and Rose, puzzling over a seemingly unconnected group of people who all went missing at the same time. We learn the perpetrator and her motive early on; the tension comes from Morck's missteps and the dangers he's blind to. And while this labyrinthine revenge plot encompasses everything from eugenics and right-wing politics to Morck's rocky love life, and includes a nifty twist at the end, the seams are starting to show. Police procedure is an afterthought, repercussions almost nonexistent, and the mystery of Assad's secret life has dragged on too long without meaningful development. Still good reading, but Adler-Olsen needs to tighten it up a little.--Graff, Keir Copyright 2010 Booklist
Publisher's Weekly Review
In the fourth entry in Adler-Olsen's Department Q series, brilliant but hapless head detective Carl Morck and his assistants-the feisty, demanding Rose and the devious Assad-are faced with a multiple-murder cold case dating back to the 1950s. That's when Curt Wad, a closet fascist, performed secret involuntary abortions and sterilizations on "the unfit." Surprisingly, Adler-Olsen manages to mix humor into a novel with such a dark back-story. Chief among the amusements are the extended effects a flu virus has on the department, which the author presents in painfully funny detail, and Morck's continuous victimization at the hands of his degenerate cousin. Both are enhanced by narrator Malcolm who treats a description of a bright red, leaky nose with the same crisp approach he might use for a Shakespearean sonnet. Malcolm presents the perennially sighing Morck with a voice that fluctuates from despairing to wistful to cautiously hopeful, marked by swiftly dissipating moments of elation. There's a tinge of amusement in Rose's shrill and angry commands. And the virus-infected Assad speaks with a subdued voice that's filtered through a stuffy nose. Malcolm is just as effective in rendering the novel's more serious sections, capturing the smarmy unction and unbridled evil of Wad. A Dutton hardcover. (Dec.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
Library Journal Review
The latest entry in Adler-Olsen's series (after A Conspiracy of Faith) does not disappoint. Set in Denmark, the novel moves in time among the 1950s, 1987, and the present, drawing readers in and concluding with a tense, suspenseful, edge-of-your-seat ending. Brilliant, brooding Det. Carl Morck once more commands his assistants Assad and Rose on a case that exposes the brutal treatment of a young woman, Nete Hermansen, in the 1950s and numerous people who disappeared as a result of her quest for vengeance. A stark portrayal of the danger of mixing politics with morality, the horrific tale is mitigated by Adler-Olsen's ability to use humor in the most unexpected places. The series takes listeners into dark areas of the government, our daily lives, our work, and our innermost selves. Narrator Graeme Malcolm is excellent. VERDICT Recommend to fans of Jo Nesbo, Karin Fossum, and Camilla Lackberg. ["An uneasy mix of comedy (far too much of it bathroom humor) and suspense," read the review of the Dutton hc, LJ 11/1/13.]-Sandra C. Clariday, Tennessee Wesleyan Coll., Athens (c) Copyright 2014. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Kirkus Book Review
Another cold case for the sturdy misfits of Copenhagen's Department Q, together with two more incomplete blasts from the past for Detective Carl Mrck. Except for the prostitute who reported her missing, no one much cared when brothel keeper Rita Nielsen vanished back in 1987, and it's no wonder the case languished. Now, however, the mystery assumes new urgency with the news that she wasn't the only one to disappear. The very same day, attorney Philip Nrvig, fisherman Viggo Mogensen, womens asylum guard Gitte Charles and do-nothing Tage Hermansen also went AWOL. Furthermore--though it takes Carl, his assistant, Hafez el-Assad, and his secretary, Rose Knudsen, quite a while to work this out--they all had links to Tage's cousin Nete Hermansen, long immured in a Sprog home for fallen women, whose second chance at a respectable life was dashed when Dr. Curt Wad, a stalwart of the Purity Party, confronted her and her businessman husband publicly with some sordid details of her past. Adler-Olsen (A Conspiracy of Faith, 2012, etc.) cuts back and forth between the fatal day in 1987 when Nete decided to avenge herself on the people who had ruined her life and the present day, when Carl's investigation of both Nete and Wad is complicated by rumors that Carl helped his cousin Ronny kill Ronny's father many years ago and further hints of the horrific fatality that first sent Carl to Department Q. Fans can rest assured that neither of these lesser subplots comes anywhere near closure. Another accomplished exercise in three-decker suspense, though the climactic twist would be harder to predict if the story had ended 100 pages earlier.]] Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Booklist Reviews
When your series relies on cold cases, it's not always easy to craft plots that have both historical interest and an air of urgency, but it's something Adler-Olsen is very good at—even if he's getting just a little bit less successful with each successive book. The fourth Department Q novel finds cranky Copenhagen detective Carl Mørck and his quirky but competent assistants, Assad and Rose, puzzling over a seemingly unconnected group of people who all went missing at the same time. We learn the perpetrator and her motive early on; the tension comes from Mørck's missteps and the dangers he's blind to. And while this labyrinthine revenge plot encompasses everything from eugenics and right-wing politics to Mørck's rocky love life, and includes a nifty twist at the end, the seams are starting to show. Police procedure is an afterthought, repercussions almost nonexistent, and the mystery of Assad's secret life has dragged on too long without meaningful development. Still good reading, but Adler-Olsen needs to tighten it up a little. Copyright 2013 Booklist Reviews.
LJ Express Reviews
In 1987, Nete Hermansen's perfect life falls to bits after she runs into an old nemesis, Dr. Curt Wad, who was responsible for her incarceration and sterilization in the 1950s. After their encounter, she plots murderous revenge on him and on others who abused her when she was young and helpless. Decades later, Danish cold-case investigator Det. Carl Mørck and his two oddball assistants Assad and Rose investigate the case of a madam who went missing in the 1980s. They unearth other missing-persons cases around the same time, and all seem tied to Wad. Verdict While the other adventures starring Mørck balanced the light and dark well, this fourth installment (after A Conspiracy of Faith) of Adler-Olsen's "Department Q" series is an uneasy mix of comedy (far too much of it bathroom humor) and suspense. Furthermore, the horrors heaped upon Nete and the all-powerful evilness of Wad are over the top. That said, it's hard to put this one down, even when one can predict certain plot twists. Told in alternating chapters that toggle between past and present, protagonist and antagonist, this title still has a lot to offer to fans of Scandinavian procedurals, grumpy heroes, and hilariously dysfunctional workmates. [See Prepub Alert, 7/15/13.]—Liz French, Library Journal (c) Copyright 2013. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Publishers Weekly Reviews
Adler-Olsen's fourth installment of his brilliant Department Q series is full of Danish jokes: pungent, dark, often excoriating ironies wrapped up in sarcastic Copenhagen Det. Carl Mørck's latest personal and professional entanglements. He's investigating a missing madam case from the 1980s, as well as trumped up accusations of his involvement in the debacle that killed one of his partners, incapacitated another, and exiled Mørck himself to the musty basement of the Department Q headquarters. Mørck may also be implicated in his own uncle's drowning death. Meanwhile, villainous abortionist Dr. Carl Wad, the leader of the Purity Party, wants to cleanse Denmark, which he and his neo-Nazi followers believe is rotten, by forcibly sterilizing wayward and retarded women. Adler-Olsen merges story lines from 1955, 1987, and 2010 with ingenious aplomb, effortlessly mixing hilarities with horrors as one of Wad's victims, Nete Hermansen, plans and executes a Hitchcockian revenge. This crime fiction tour de force could only have been devised by an author who can even turn stomach flu into a belly laugh. (Dec.)
[Page ]. Copyright 2013 PWxyz LLCReviews from GoodReads
Citations
Adler-Olsen, J., & Aitken, M. (2013). The purity of vengeance: a Department Q novel (First Edition.). Dutton.
Chicago / Turabian - Author Date Citation, 17th Edition (style guide)Adler-Olsen, Jussi and Martin, Aitken. 2013. The Purity of Vengeance: A Department Q Novel. New York: Dutton.
Chicago / Turabian - Humanities (Notes and Bibliography) Citation, 17th Edition (style guide)Adler-Olsen, Jussi and Martin, Aitken. The Purity of Vengeance: A Department Q Novel New York: Dutton, 2013.
Harvard Citation (style guide)Adler-Olsen, J. and Aitken, M. (2013). The purity of vengeance: a department Q novel. First edn. New York: Dutton.
MLA Citation, 9th Edition (style guide)Adler-Olsen, Jussi., and Martin Aitken. The Purity of Vengeance: A Department Q Novel First Edition., Dutton, 2013.